


where there's smoke, there's fire

by orphan_account



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7928104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You and your words, obsessed with your legacy / Your sentences border on senseless / And you are paranoid in every paragraph / How they perceive you..</p>
            </blockquote>





	where there's smoke, there's fire

**Author's Note:**

> literally just a self-indulgent twist to write with Burn lyrics. i'll probably be writing another fic based on Burn that's actually charisk and a little more...coherent? yeah. i plan to orphan this work eventually, so please save it if you like it.

 Everyone loves Chara Dreemur.

You know this because, right now, everyone  _hates_ you, and it is  _all_ their fault.

You are curled in a corner of your dark, soft bedroom, the scent of wood polish and fresh paint burning your nose as much as your tears burn your eyes. You can barely breathe, and you don't even  _try_ to see. Your hysterical hiccupping doesn't echo for the padding of the carpet underneath you, but it makes a vibration in the air you wish could rack your body until it stops altogether.

Chara was fully, wholly human once again. After two agonizing years, they had been accepted back into their adoptive mother and father's arms. There was a lot of emotion to work out in the Dreemur family, and not all of it had gone smoothly, but you were glad to stand by and support from a distance. You cheered your partner on as they attained a new life, a new hope, a proper mortality, a chance to live the years they lost, at last. They seemed...content. Far more than happy, they seemed truly at peace with life, with the way things were. You were, too.

You were very close to Chara, of course. You had been through so much with them. You had been a troubled child who did not begin with the capacity to SPARE every monster. Chara stood by and watched, narrated- tried to guide, but it was hard. A time or two had passed in which you'd become so frustrated, so angry, so tired, that you had slaughtered almost the whole Underground. 

Chara had held your body, shaking and crying as it was right now, and told you that it was okay. You could start over. It would be okay. They coaxed and comforted you when Toriel said you sounded familiar and you broke into panicked fits upon remembering her dust scattered at your feet. They helped you as best they knew how...and you became a better person for it. They never mentioned those horrible timelines after they were through- and they never tried to steer you away from them, either.

They were just a voice, after all. They were only a ghost, they had no true influence over your actions, and...well, this was what happened.

Eventually, you got it right. You emerged with every single monster safe and sound, from the Underground- even the Amalgamites. You had been a help to Monsters as much as you could, but you did not take the title of Ambassador. It didn't feel right, after all of the LV they had once accumulated- even if it was all gone now. Even if the slate was technically clean, Frisk always felt the grains of dust embedded in their lungs, the guilt of actions too heavy to name.

But it was alright.  
Everyone was safe, and happy.  
And for two years, the world flourished.

You were heralded as a Hero, and though it nipped at your heartstrings to be called such a thing after committing awful crimes, you smiled and took it and tried not to think of it too much. Your guilt sometimes weighed heavy and those were the nights Chara would stroke your hair and assure you that you were not a horrible person, and you had done the right thing in the end, and it was okay.

It was okay until they started to  **remember**.

Bit by bit, monsters remembered death. They had vivid nightmares which lead to clear memories of being slaughtered. They recalled timeline after timeline, weapon after weapon, encounter after encounter, as clearly as Frisk remembered the eerie silences and rush of LV. They knew what Frisk had done. 

Begging the monsters to understand, Frisk was at a horrified loss. The last few days had been spent desperately, frantically trying to reason with everyone, trying not to get  _mobbed_. Not even the goat monsters they had felt at home with would shelter them from the storm now. They looked with hurt, with sadness, with anger in their eyes, at Frisk's blistered expressions- burned with a permanent mark of agony at the loss of the happy ending they had worked for.

They hadn't understood forgiveness- compromise- love. The cycles had helped, having multiple tries had taught them so much- but it was at the expense of monster's  _lives_ that they had learned, and that was unforgivable. They knew so because they could never forgive themself, either. They could only distract.

Now, though, there was no distraction- and there was no  ** _Chara_**.

Afraid that their beloved mother and father would shun them for supporting Frisk, they had sided boldly with the monsters and recounted the terrible details of timelines to match up with the memories that monsters were regaining. They let all the puzzle pieces fall into place, and turned Frisk loose. They were the new hero- the one who told the truth, the one who had done nothing wrong, the martyr, the victim...

They had come to find Frisk, curled up in this very corner, when it happened. They crouched down and thumbed away Frisk's tears. They whispered, "I am truly sorry...I finally have the life I have always wanted..I do not deserve it, but I have never deserved anything, and knowing that, I have never allowed myself to have anything...you taught me that. You taught me that- people can make mistakes, start over, be new. So - you should try that, too. Go somewhere nobody knows you, Frisk. ...You are filled with-"

You slapped their hand away and you...you had shouted at them, terrible things, until they left with an apologetic face.  
Or maybe it was a facade.

* * *

You are moving out of your home.

The monsters have all but decided to run you out of it, anyway. They won't speak to you, they won't look at you, and those who do look pitying- but untrusting. Chara hasn't been seen, but neither has Asgore or Toriel or Sans...or anyone else you used to know and love. They remember so much more than other monsters, like Snowdrake and Chilldrake. You have stopped wasting time on tears.

You wordlessly move your things into a moving truck. You look at the floor and nowhere else when you must exit your room. You move far, far away.  
You move to an island. They know who you are, but not what you've done.  
You miss Chara.

You find a box while unpacking, filled with memories of Chara- of happiness, of those two blissful years you didn't appreciate as much as you should've. You thumb through the pages and pages of notes, of letters, of polaroids and trinkets. You feel tears bubbling in your throat and behind your eyes as you fall over the kindness and love you will never again recieve from those people in your mind, so far away, so happy without you, so miserable to remember you.

Chara had been with you, every step of the way. They knew you were never hurting anybody out of delight, or curiosity- you had made horrible mistakes, and everything turned out okay in the end, and...and Chara  _betrayed_ you.

Chara had not stuck by your side as they had before.

Chara  _used_ you.

Chara got their family back, their body back, their life back- and no longer needed you around.

You grit your teeth, the tears roll down your cheeks, and you throw fistfuls of paper and picture into the fire pit in your back yard, watching the memories burn.

When people ask if you are Frisk, the one who saved the monsters at Mt. Ebott, you say yes.  
When people ask if you are happy, you say yes.

When years pass, and life moves on, and the world is used to monsters and Chara is the face of them all and people ask what happened and why you are not there, representing the race you saved...you say nothing.

_You **burned** those memories. The world has no right to your heart, Chara has no place in your head-_

they won't get to know what you said.


End file.
